Crisp Apfelstrudel (+ Doorbells & Sleighbells & Schnitzel with Noodles)
Thursday, March 31, 2011 
It's obvious to anyone who’s read more than a few of my blog entries that one of my favorite things is dessert. My taste buds have evolved over time, and as I’ve gotten older I’ve developed more of a “savory tooth”, but I still love cakes and cookies and other sweets, especially discovering those from other cultures. My husband plus one bakery owner in Athens, Greece can attest to this…
One dessert I had never tried until we visited Vienna a few years back is apfelstrudel. As in Budapest, we ate quite a bit of pie / cake / sweets during our visit. My favorite was the Sachertorte (see my attempt to make one here), but the apfelstrudel ran a close second. If you’re one of those people who eats the pie but leaves the crust, I think you would really like this dessert. There’s the perfect ratio of pastry-to-filling and since the only butter in the recipe is brushed onto the outside crust, it’s not too rich.
It wasn’t reminiscing about our trip to Vienna that made me decide to make an apfelstrudel. The idea actually popped into my head during my daughter’s bathtime the other night. She’s fine when she’s in the tub but doesn’t really appreciate the shock of the cool air when we take her out. So, to calm her down, I sing “My Favorite Things” and “Do-Re-Mi” from the movie musical The Sound of Music. Any fans out there probably recognized that the title of this posting was taken from a verse of “My Favorite Things”. Well, as I was singing it the other night, I thought to myself, “Hmmm, some apple strudel and schnitzel and noodles sounds really good actually…”
I recently decided that each Sunday, time permitting, I would cook a big meal from scratch. During the week, the nights are always rushed and there never seems to be enough time to tackle any remotely complicated dishes. This past weekend I decided to make an Austro-German-inspired meal. We had Wiener Schnitzel, spätzle, a salad based on one we had in Freiburg and, of course, apfelstrudel.
Recipes taken from:
Wiener Schnitzel: Martha Stewart’s Cooking School
Spätzle: Joy of Cooking (1997 version)
Salad: from memory (lettuce, shredded carrots & cabbage, tomatoes, cucumber, alfalfa sprouts, pumpkin & sunflower seeds + homemade salad dressing: 1/8 cup milk, 1/8 cup light cream, 1 teaspoon cider vinegar, 1 teaspoon lemon juice, 2 teaspoons sugar)
Apfelstrudel: Joy of Cooking (1997 version)
Reader Comments (2)
So - A needle pulling thread... Fa - a long, long way to go!!!! Love it! Homemade spatzle? YUM.
you are driving me crazy, it all looks so good. i could live on spatzle and streudel for sure. very adventuresome of you.